


By the Sea and Far Away

by Q_Drew



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Gothic Elements, Horror, Post DH, Suspense, Terror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-10-06 18:33:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20511581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Q_Drew/pseuds/Q_Drew
Summary: Following the War, Severus Snape has isolated himself along the remote Scottish coast of Loch Eriboll.  On a blustery October day, an enigmatic Hermione Granger intrudes on his shoreline, and the past is brought into sharp relief - along with a possible future.  Can he trust her?  Can he trust himself?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, friends! Welcome to my very special Spooktober fic. I love spooky, scary stories this time of year and I hope you do too. 
> 
> Take heed of the warnings and tags. I’ll be happy to see you another time if they are too ominous for you.
> 
> Undying love and thanks to my beautiful, powerful, unicorn-beta, [Ms_Anthrop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_Anthrop/pseuds/Ms_Anthrop). I believe I almost killed her with my over-excessive use of pronouns. Any errors that remain are mine.
> 
> Rating is between a T or M but is rated M to be considerate of language and themes.
> 
> This fic is complete in 6 chapters. I am posting every Tuesday in October with the final chapter being posted on Halloween, October 31st. Yes, I _did_ say this was a one-shot a few months ago. As has become my fanfic writing mantra, 'long story short: things happened'. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I welcome comments, kudos, and (what I expect to be a lot of) shrill screaming. I'm mostly friendly and can be found on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/q-drew).
> 
> And if this type of thing interests you, I made a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4gIszFpXNC9BRr27wxZ61f?si=WSOkmcI5Sme8VHzP9xfLvQ) for this fic on Spotify.

Severus Snape has been on this remote shore for almost a year and a half. The weather has been steadily growing colder, meaning that winter is soon approaching. He surmises it has to be at least October, possibly closer to November. Without a master twisting him to his bidding every fortnight and no office hours to keep, regularly tracking the time has become relievingly unnecessary.

Prior to his one and only year as Headmaster, Severus had arranged to acquire a small crofthouse on a coastal sea loch from an elderly couple who wished to live closer to the civilization of Inverness. In contrast, he had desired the isolation. After it was all over, Severus reasoned, if he were to survive, he had wanted to be as far away from the Highlands and that damnable Wizarding castle as possible.

Following his altercation with the snake in that dusty shack, Severus had been left for dead. He hadn’t minded at the time. Death had been welcome after two decades of playing an unwinnable game of cat and mouse. Indeed, his soul had been broken, his pride had shattered, and his sins were too dark for even hell itself. He had hoped to float forever in purgatory, and giving his life for a just cause would surely land him there, which would be a far better choice than staying alive. If he lived, the odds were high that he would be aggressively prosecuted against in the Wizengamot. Hadn't he finally done enough to allow himself one reprieve in his entire existence and avoid that? 

However, fate was a fickle bitch. A traditional, save-the-headmaster contingency plan had been implemented by the house-elves to keep him alive despite his fondest wishes. After Nagini had a little nosh, the house-elves had teleported him to the bowels of the castle and were able to staunch the bleeding. In their dedicated actions, Severus had been duly reminded that duties are duties, and vows are vows, even for the most diminutive amongst his former staff. Alas, unfortunate Severus had still been a proper Headmaster of the school at the time of meeting with Nagini; even if he inherited the post in a most non-traditional manner. It wasn’t as if he was the first man to murder his way to the top. It was even requested of him, for Merlin’s sake. 

Once Severus had been able to stand, he Apparated to this small isolated cottage. He hadn’t much cared if he were to splinch himself into oblivion during the process. Death would have had a second chance to stake its claim on him then, or so he’d hoped. Over the last year, though, he had grown to be thankful that he had not.

Truthfully, a life lived in isolation makes it difficult to forgive. Torn between two sides, pitted against two wizarding Generals and often himself, the stress of twenty years as a spy had eaten away at him. Chip by chip Severus had been broken down to the shell of whoever he once could claim to be. He had been driven by just one purpose - to avenge all those that died so needlessly - and that had propelled him down into the dark abyss. Albus - having gone down that dark path a time or two himself - had always told him that even when in the suffocating pit, you just have to look up to see the light. Severus had laughed bitterly at that then, but now, a year later the bitterness is not quite as cutting. 

In isolation it is easy to forget. Easy to forget the sounds of living amongst others. Cutlery clanging over a meal, the soft conversations muffled amongst bookcases, the humming buzz of magic that rested in the air. Conversations with dithering old biddies and outbursts at stumbling dunderheads. It’s painfully humorous what is missed when alone. But Severus had wanted this isolation, hadn’t he? When he selected this place for his self-imposed exile, had this not been his aim?

Arrogantly, Severus assumes that the War had ended shortly after he left the Castle. The idea seems all the more probable because no one had come searching for him from either side all this time. Neither had sought him out to congratulate or imprison him. And unless Potter was a complete fuckup, he had succeeded in what he was tapped to do by the great man himself. Besides, Severus often reassures himself, the mark hadn’t burned in over a year. It had to be all over.

His one-room house is located several miles outside of Durness, along the shoreline of Loch Eriboll. Far enough north where there is literally no one to see, or be seen. The population is purposefully not magical and is home to only a few thousand Muggle citizens scattered over Sutherland County. Which would cause a magical interloper to stand out. Which is the entire point. He didn’t want to be followed. By anyone.

Day after day it had been the same. Severus would wake, cultivate his emotions, drink tea, go for a walk, stare at the loch, read, sleep, repeat. Over the many weeks and months the multitude of his exile began to lash out at him, flogging him, as frigid and relentless as the wind whipping in off the coast.

Severus had been alone, here on the coast, for the preceding Wheel of the Year.

Which makes what he sees outside his window this morning incredibly unsettling. A woman sitting at the loch’s shore.

He knows it is a woman because the figure has an absolute disaster of a mane, long and curly all down her back. Upon her head is a cream-colored wide-brimmed hat obscuring her face from his vantage point. Cinched high up on her waist and wrapped around her legs is a great woolly blanket, indicative of the dropping temperatures.

This woman is new. And she is on what he considers his beach. 

Infuriatingly, she sits there as if she is welcome to it.

This will not do. 

Severus throws on a jumper, and his boots. He then opens his creaky front door. She doesn’t even acknowledge it. He knows she can hear his approach. The door’s rusty whistling is often loud enough to be heard from the shore when it’s caught in a gust of wind. 

He treks down to the beach, sloshing in the mud and over the sand. He comes to stand next to her. 

“This is -” Severus begins, and then stops cold.

The woman turns to look up at him, and for a split moment her face is completely devoid of any features as if she is using an exemplary _Notice-Me-Not_. Her face suddenly morphs into someone he immediately recognizes and wishes to never see again. Out of all the people to ever come here, of course it would be her. This witch who had never left well enough alone, had never once stopped to consider that something wasn’t her business, who had pushed her overinflated sense of righteousness on everyone, and had possessed a general aura of busy-bodiness that she was never able to control. This is who is sitting in front of him on his stretch of shoreline.

And all she is doing is looking up at him expectantly, as if she bloody well knows that he lives here.

“Hermione Granger,” he says, his voice suddenly hoarse.

She merely keeps steady eye contact without saying anything. Both motionless, the silence stretches between them. 

“While I am skeptical,” Severus says carefully, breaking the silence first, “as to how exactly you just happened to come and sit on this very beach in front of my house… you were never this quiet. Not even when I insisted on absolute silence during my class.”

“Professor,” she says then, as if testing out the taste of it. “I apologize. I didn’t realize this was your beach.” Her voice is somehow even posher than he remembers it. 

Severus shifts his weight, uncertain. A sense of dread disguised as bile is beginning to rise in his throat. If she is here, others will certainly follow soon. “I somehow have doubts as to that very thing, given your perpetual bloated Gryffindor sense of justice.”

“Have I ever lied to you, Professor?” Granger asks quietly.

The bark of laughter that escapes him then is so loud that several nearby seagulls take flight. “Do you mean when you feigned ignorance over setting my robes on fire, stealing from my stores, escaping into the night from your bedchambers, or -” Severus stops short. He takes a steady breath as memories of blood and dust flood back; he needs to know. “Did we win?” he asks.

“We?”

Growing irritated, Severus hisses out, “Yes, _ we_. Potter, you, the youngest Weasley welp. Did we win the War?”

Miss Granger breaks their eye contact to gaze out over the loch. “I suppose we had to if I’m here,” she says.

“My God, Granger, did you hit your head on the way here?”

“No, Professor, I assure you. I am entirely of sane mind.” She shrugs one shoulder casually. But then an expression of sadness filters over her face before she whispers, “I just think if we hadn’t won, I probably wouldn’t be here. Or anywhere, for that matter.”

Severus slips his hands in his pockets and spins away from her to kick some rocks behind him towards the shoreline. Of course she wouldn’t be here if they had lost. He should have deciphered that she’d be dead. Like so many of the ones before… Lily, Charity, Albus. Those he couldn’t save and others he hadn’t even had the chance to try. 

Severus turns back again. “Well then, what exactly are you -”

But when he turns Miss Granger is gone. It is like she was never there. The only things remaining on the shoreline are some woolly threads from her blanket caught in the stones where she was sitting. Severus scans the coast but doesn’t see any splotches of cream or brown wind-torn hair to indicate which direction she had run off to. 

Had he imagined it? Had he finally isolated himself long enough to the point of beginning to hallucinate another to fill the void? Severus comes to the startling conclusion then that he is very tired; he’s tired of being alone, as a matter of fact. If his brain is beginning to conjure a companion for him, perhaps it is time to re-enter society. Durness is not that far, he can move into town before his mind completely leaves him. But the wool is here, though, isn’t it? Indicating that maybe Miss Granger had really been here just a moment ago and this was not all a flight of fancy.

The door to his shack slams forcing his attention away from his scrutinizations. His temper spikes. _ If that bloody fucking girl invited herself in… _

Severus storms up the embankment to his cottage, catches the door in the next gust of wind and walks inside. It is empty. There is no one else here. Just like how it has always been. 

He stews over his tea, stealing glances out the window for the rest of the day.

\---

That night Severus wakes with a start. The fire has died down, only embers remaining; the chill has seeped into his house. Severus doesn’t remember leaving the window open above his small bookcase, but nonetheless it is. As he shuffles over to snap it shut, he hears something. 

A low whine, being carried to him on a hostile wind. Then the pitch intensifies, and Severus identifies the sound. A woman screaming or perhaps a child, an infant. 

The sound wails, echoing around his home and into his head. 

Heart thudding relentlessly, Severus rushes to slip on his boots and his overcoat over his thick pyjamas. Severus might have a self-described heart as dark as pitch but even he will not leave a distressed woman or child out in the middle of the night to fend for themselves. The coast is right there, he reasons, what if they drown in their panic? Too many had already died because of his forced inaction. If Severus could atone for just one of them by aiding this person, maybe it would tilt his soul just that much closer to redemption. 

Severus runs out of the crofthouse into the black Stygian landscape. The door ricochets off the stonewall behind him, the slam echoing. The wind whistles in response. Severus first steps to the left before turning and stepping to the right, panic gripping him and making him indecisive. 

“_Lumos_,” he mutters shakily, wand pointing out in front of him. Severus winces against the sudden glare and then angles his wand down to light his feet. He stands there, silent for a moment. Then the cry pierces through the night from somewhere behind the croft.

Severus circles behind the house and stumbles up the coast’s incline towards the dirt road - the only one leading to Durness. Because of the slope, the crofthouse is largely invisible from any of the remote passers-by. It was one of the reasons he had sought it out those few years ago. 

His feet slip, losing traction in the slippery frost. Severus hates this time of year, the weather can never decide what it wants to do; the ground is often a mess of either sand, mud, or snow. 

Breathing heavy, he finally crests the top to the road. Severus waits there, willing himself to hold his breath to hear better. Finally, the person screams again from somewhere in front of him.

“Hello!” Severus calls, voice unsteady from the hurried climb. “Are you hurt?”

His steps crunch down the road, the rolling landscape stretching out in front of him. Severus can’t recall the last time when the sky was this black; the lack of the moon and stars make it feel as if he is trapped under several layers of crinoline. The blistering wind carries the waft of salt from Loch Eriboll to him, cutting across his face and pushing his hair aside. 

The wail slices through the night again, his ears ringing.

Severus stops short. 

Then, he hears something scurrying up the gravel road in front of him. Something moving impossibly fast. Crawling towards him, it throws up pebbles behind it due to its speed. It is either very distressed to be moving so fast… or perhaps Severus has misjudged what exactly is the source of the sound. 

And the scream intensifies. 

The sudden surge of adrenaline causes his hands to shake, the fear of the sudden unknown rooting him into place. Just how isolated Severus has purposefully made himself for all this time has come into sharp focus. This person - creature - thing is fast approaching and he is woefully out of defense practice. Severus’ fear is manifesting physically; his throat is constricting, and his knees begin to buckle.

In that instant, just outside the boundary of his _ Lumos_, a shadow suddenly materializes, like ink pooling out from the dark beyond him. 

It is very low on the road on four feet.

It is a red fox.

Severus stares dumbly at the creature, his blood roaring through his ears. 

The fox, in turn, gives him a glimet glance, as if regarding him to be the intruder. The fox flings its head back and lets out the cry Severus has been hearing. The skin-tingling scream he had associated with a human. 

Suddenly, the fox stops mid-scream and looks quickly towards the coast. Its ears flatten before it sprints away further inland, leaving Severus - once again - alone in the dark. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is your last friendly yet spooky reminder to take heed of the warnings and tags. Are you brave enough to continue?

The next week passes as usual, meaning that Severus spends it alone. There continues to be no one to interrupt his solitude; just the way he had grown to like and expect. But now there is a ribbon of anxiety - and something he hadn’t felt in many months: doubt - woven into his routine. He can’t help but wonder about Miss Granger. It’s very unlike a Gryffindor to quietly disappear for so long. Severus half-expected her to show up the following day but he is now nearing the eighth day since she first appeared. He doubts that she’s done with him for good. Is she gathering reinforcements to drag him back to London to face a tyrannical Wizengamot? Or had he instead really imagined her, despite the evidence of the wool she had left behind?

In an effort to calm his nerves he goes for a ramble.

And on top of the near hill, with an excellent view of the loch, Severus catches a glimpse of that damnable cream-colored bonnet. 

“Shite,” Severus mutters, as he walks up the slope with increasing speed. The physical exertion reminds him of what occurred a week ago; when he had trudged up the rise behind the croft and came face-to-face with a screaming fox. Severus hadn’t slept that night. He had sat up and waited for dawn to break before he had dared to turn away from the window.

Granger doesn’t turn to look at him as he walks to her. In addition to her ridiculous hat, she is wearing a very heavy looking long skirt the same color, and a tucked-in flannel. He thinks it is more the look of a romantic fictional Scottish-maiden than a practical-woman-at-the-beginning-of-winter. Perhaps, he surmises, she is finally able to wear what she wishes to, no longer bound to the stark functionality of the war.

Severus clears his throat, “You’re back, Granger.”

Calm, she replies, “I never left, Professor”.

Severus grits his teeth at the nonsensical answer. His tone acidic, he snarls, “Well in that case, do you think you could very well piss off?”

She looks up at him evenly, not startled at all by his fury, and just stares at him. Deep, dark, chocolate eyes bore into his. Feeling chastised, Severus growls, turning away from her to regard the loch. “Look, Granger, I came here to avoid everyone, and you are part of that esteemed group.”

“I apologize then, Professor.” 

He sighs heavily, ire deflating due to her apology; it had sounded genuine. “Could you drop the Professor business, girl? I’m trying to forget everything and you’re making it damn near impossible.”

“Then what shall I call you?” Granger asks, scrunching her nose in bewilderment.

He shrugs sharply, his hands in the pockets of his wool coat. “Snape should do, I think.”

Miss Granger doesn’t say anything in response.

The cold wind blows his hair across his face. 

Severus suddenly feels compelled to be reintroduced properly. It would satiate his amplifying desire for fellowship and be far easier than crafting new relationships with the people in the village. And he is incredibly curious as to her motives, maybe he would be able to suss out why she's here if they were more comfortable. “Would you like to continue this conversation in my cottage out of the wind?”

This gets a reaction out of her. Granger tries to hide it but she had been startled by the proposal. “No, no I think not, Snape,” she stammers.

“So, what?” Severus bites out, something in his chest twisting at her refusal. “You’re just going to stand here on this cropping in the wind for the foreseeable future, like some tartan-wrapped Borda?” 

Miss Granger angles her upper body away, hiding her face from him. Her voice is soft, reluctant, “Yes, I believe so.”

He sighs heavily again. “Suit yourself, Granger. But I’m going back inside. I trust you remember the symptoms of hypothermia. One of them being the loss of common fucking sense.”

And then Severus turns, not waiting for her response. The tentacles of the thing that had twisted in his chest have now curled out into his arms, his skin tingling all the way down to his hands. Severus doesn’t like that; it’s very distracting. He finds it a small miracle that he is able to trot down the slope to the crofthouse without stumbling head over arse. 

Hermione doesn’t come to his door that day.

\---

She does come the next day.

Granger knocks on his door, the proper thing to do, he supposes. And Severus answers, the other corresponding proper thing to do, he thinks. Both of them taking their expected turns in this game of acquaintanceship rebuilding. The familiarity between them is there but something is tainted. Maybe it has to do with their past and the roles they played or perhaps it’s his damaged reclusive mind creating nonexistent hurdles; Severus isn’t quite sure. The only thing he is certain of is that he feels grateful she came to him, something curiously similar to tenderness begins to warm his chest. Additionally, her arrival finally confirms to himself that she is real. 

She stands keenly just outside his door wearing what looks to be exactly what she wore yesterday. The only addition is the blanket from their first meeting that is now draped around her shoulders. _ Does she only have the one outfit_, he wonders briefly. 

“Yes?” Severus drawls, attempting to snuff the unexpected flutter of longing he feels upon seeing her. His hand forms a tight fist at his side, the nails digging into his palm, in an attempt to feel anything other than this lightness that is just a few paces away from joy.

Granger’s gaze lifts to his face expectantly. “I’m taking you up on your offer of hospitality,” she pauses, growing uncertain, “if it’s still being offered, that is.”

He doesn’t say anything for a beat. Severus still has reservations about her. But it had been so long since he had been so close physically - just a mere few feet away - from someone who was not a shop proprietor. His touch-starved skin aches. Twisting to the side, in an effort to release the tension growing in his shoulders, he gestures grandly behind him, “Please, do come in.”

For some reason this small proclamation seems to please her greatly. The relaxed smile she gives him reaches her eyes. Severus finds that he quite likes that, but isn’t certain he should allow himself to like it at all. Granger still hasn’t been completely honest with him. Severus isn’t a fool, he doesn’t believe in coincidences. Miss Granger had found him for a reason and she hadn’t yet shared her motives. 

She walks heavily on the floorboards to the middle of his one-room home. Severus has two immediate thoughts: the first being that she must be wearing some rather thick boots under that skirt, so maybe Miss Granger hadn’t lost her practicality after all; and the second thought being that he is inordinately grateful that he had the foresight to make his bed this morning.

“Tea?” Severus asks after shutting the door.

“Yes, thank you,” Granger answers as she hesitantly sits at his small table, her posture a little stiff. 

Severus prepares their tea at his small counter space. “I’m afraid I haven’t been to Durness for a shop lately,” he confesses over his shoulder. “I can’t even offer you the dubious pleasure of stale biscuits.”

She didn’t seem to mind because she replies, “I don’t think I’d like them anyway.”

“Ah,” he says remembering key facts from her student record. “Dentist parents.” 

Severus turns and hands her a cup of tea, their fingers grazing. The touch sends sparks dancing up his wrist. His eyes flick up to hers, trying to decipher if she had felt the same thing. But when Miss Granger's eyes catch his the only thing he sees there is trust. Sudden shame immediately surges through him and Severus turns away from her. He has done himself a great disservice to isolate himself for so long; his physical reaction at such a small gesture is completely inappropriate.

Severus wearily sits across from her and hides behind his cup, his strained posture mirroring hers. He grimaces as he attempts to pull up his Occlumentic shields so he can repress his emotions, but it’s a half-hearted attempt at best. He doesn’t have the motivation to keep hiding. Severus feels he’s come to a fork on this dangerous road he’s been on since she first arrived. One way leads to mending a past breach, and forming some type of rapport with this woman. And the other is more of the depressing isolationism his body is starting to aggressively reject.

After realizing that he had been sitting for several minutes without a word Severus mutters, “I imagine they kept you from all kinds of sweets.”

“Well,” Granger says thoughtfully, as if there had been no awkward pause in the conversation. “Not every sweet, I suppose.”

In any other scenario it may have been an innocent statement. But irritatingly, Severus’ touch-starved body is buzzing in hyper-awareness of hers. Is he imagining her heated gaze? At her words, Severus’ wrist throbs where the sparks landed after their passing touch, and he struggles to form a coherent thought.

Severus clears his throat, and before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “Would you care to accompany me the next time I go to Durness?”

Miss Granger startles slightly. “When would that be?”

His eagerness seeps into his answer, “The next day or two. Tomorrow, if that suits.”

“I’m not familiar... how far is Durness from here?”

“Why would that matter?”

Granger looks at him blankly, as if she can’t follow his thought thread.

Severus surprises himself when instead of a biting retort he instead mutters kindly, “Because of that whole Apparition business, you see.” 

“Ah,” she says uncomfortably. “I’m not sure if I could.”

He finally lowers his cup to the table. Bewildered, Severus asks, “How did you make it up here then, Muggle taxi?” 

Granger’s laughter is a bit shaky at first, as if she hadn’t laughed in a long time, before it grows stronger. “No. That sounds…”

“Implausible?” he supplies.

Granger nods as her bright laughter-filled eyes meet his. He doesn’t want to press her and lose the sudden warmth swirling between them. Severus allows himself to hope just a fraction that she’ll divulge her motivations and methods without him demanding to know them soon. She is a Gryffindor, he reasons, she’ll have to crack.

“I do a satisfactory side-along. I don’t have a car.” He pauses before asking gently, “Unless you’ve gotten over your fear of flying?”

“How did you know that I was afraid of flying?”

Severus snorts. “Who didn’t know, Granger?” And then he pitches his voice lower to soften the blow, “It’ll be maybe twenty minutes by air, if that’s better.”

“You… can fly?” Miss Granger asks carefully.

“Didn’t you know? I’d have thought Potter would have told you.”

“No, or if they did, I forgot, I guess. We wouldn’t be far from the coast, would we?” Granger asks, eyeing the loch out his window.

“No,” he says, not understanding her hesitation. “Durness is along Sango Bay.”

“I suppose it’ll be alright then.”

Inquisitive, Severus watches Miss Granger as she sips her tea. He tries to decipher how she is different from how he remembers her. She is obviously a woman now; Granger's form more curves than the gangly edges of her youth. But, most surprising of all, she still has some kind of youthful exuberance about her. Miss Granger somehow had lived through one of the worst wizarding conflicts in centuries and yet did not have one single wrinkle on her face, or a freckle out of place, or any visible scars. He wonders if she is using a glamor. It’s possible that’s all it is in combination with her puritanical clothing choices. But as they continue to have their tea together, Severus can’t help but think that there is something off.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, after tea and some light reading, Miss Granger knocks on his worn, salt-battered door again. 

“Have you decided, then?” Severus asks, as he shrugs his wool coat over his shoulders after answering the door and inviting her in.

“Between?” she asks, adjusting her blanket like a shawl and knotting the corners over her chest.

Severus rolls his eyes, as he pulls his sleeves down over his wrists. “Granger, you’ve been many things over the years but obtuse isn’t usually one of them.”

“Apologies,” Granger offers as she bows slightly, her damnable big hat obscuring her face.

He releases a suffering sigh. “Have you decided between what mode of transportation you’d be most comfortable with to get to Durness?”

“Oh,” Granger says as she straightens up to her full height.  _ The boots must give her an inch or two_, Severus thinks. He doesn’t remember her being quite so tall. “Apparition. But,” she holds up her hand, “I’d like to change my choice if I need to for the return journey.”

“Fine,” Severus concedes. “I will attempt to make the transfer as smooth as possible.”

He gestures for her to stand next to him. Severus supposes that he can merely offer her his arm, or even just curl his fingers around her blanket for the side-along. He had apparated others out of tight-spots with less in the past. But Granger’s radiating body heat in his small home is reawakening the wistful ache from yesterday. The candy floss-like mass that has been growing in Severus’ chest simultaneously feels suffocating and revitalizing. He doesn’t want to give her a passive gesture, even though he realizes that every time he placates himself it’s one more riskier step closer to damnation. But hadn’t Severus done enough? Can’t he allow himself just one indulgence?

After Granger slides next to him, Severus places a hand on her far shoulder, his arm slung across her back. She stiffens for a moment before looking over at him, her doe eyes impossibly large. He smirks, the corner of his mouth upturning only slightly. Granger’s face relaxes then and before Severus can change his mind he grips her shoulder firmly and says, “Look alive, Granger.” Then, they spin out of his cottage without a sound.

\---

When they arrive in Durness, in a back alley near his preferred shops, Granger stumbles from under him and retches. 

Severus turns away to give her some semblance of privacy. A twinge of regret intertwines with the heaviness in his chest. Was there a way that he could have made the jump smoother? It was almost as flawless as he could make it. Why did Miss Granger react like she hadn’t ever apparated before?

“Not something you’ve done in awhile, Granger?” Severus asks gently after she goes silent.

She coughs before she answers, terse, “No.”

He turns to face her. “Well, looks like we may be flying back, then,” he declares. 

Granger nods, and then smooths out her skirt and readjusts her hat. “Yes, I believe so. Unless -”

Severus raises an eyebrow at her, imploring her to continue.

She looks away at him, hesitant. “Unless you’d like to return yourself. I’m sure I could find a way back on my own.”

“Rubbish,” Severus snaps, a flare of protectiveness bursting through him. “Do you even know where the croft is from here? It’s not safe to travel about by yourself in an unknown area. Someone would surely have my head, if it isn’t already spoken for, if you did that. Your lot is not very forgiving.”

Granger seems to think this statement over before responding, “I suppose that’s true. They aren’t. Well, should we get started?” She takes a few steps to the road. “I need to get back to -” she stops suddenly.

“Get back to what?” He questions as he comes to her side.

“Nothing,” she says vaguely, shrugging her shoulders. “Misspoke.” She avoids looking at him, suddenly very interested in what is happening down at the end of the lane.

Severus scoffs. “You’ve always been a bad liar, Granger.” But he lets it drop all the same; they both have earned their secrets, he reminds himself.

\---

Shopping with Granger is tortuous for Severus. She is all types of lovely: ogling the fresh produce, hedonically smelling the herbs, ahhing over young children being pulled to the next shop by their rushed parents, twirling freely down the sidewalk in front of him as the snow begins to fall. Granger is cheer personified, effervescent in her unbridled joy to be doing this monotonous task with him. It was almost like she hadn’t had a carefree day like this in years; maybe she really hadn’t, he thinks. Severus feels the unidentifiable mass in his chest grow, expanding into something curiously - dangerously - akin to happiness. He is certain he shouldn’t allow himself to feel it, but nonetheless the onset of the emotion is there vexing him.

They enter the butcher’s shop last. The bell rattles over the wooden door as they enter. Miss Granger’s fascination is caught by the stained-glass winged ox centered prominently in the door’s glass panel.

“What does it mean?” she asks as they wait for the proprietor to come out from the back. 

“Luke the Evangelist,” Severus mutters, watching her fingers splay gracefully over the colored glass. “Patron saint of butchers, if I recall right.”

“Tobias!” the shopkeeper calls joyfully from behind them. The pair spin around. 

An easy smile splits across Severus’ face. “Harvey,” he greets. 

Bewildered, Granger whispers, “Tobias?”

Severus leans low to whisper into her ear, “You can’t ever be too careful, Granger.”

“And who is this lass?” Harvey asks from across the counter.

“I’m Herm-” she begins, taking a step forward.

Suddenly, Severus cuts her off, thinking of all the risks that Hermione Granger presents. “She’s visiting. An old family friend, you see.” He gives her a pointed look and she shuts her mouth. “Tell me,” he turns back to Harvey. “What do you have in stock today?”

“Ah, well we have some wild boar, some nice pheasants came in yesterday, and aye,” the man holds up a finger, before he walks down the counter to the display. “I think you’ll be interested to see this, it was surplus to requirements for a posh wedding at the Gualin estate. Very rare. Only for the most undiscriminating of tastes.”

“Granger, do try to be less daft,” he whispers harshly to her when Harvey had stepped out of earshot to fuss with a thick cut of meat wrapped in thick wax paper. “How many Hermiones do you know? You don’t want to lower your guard…” Severus trails off, suddenly realizing that he had done just that very thing. Trusting Granger when she still hadn’t shared the reason why she found him, instead simply seeming happy to just play the part of his compatriot. A spike of uncertain paranoia cuts through the core of contentment that had begun to grow earlier.

Granger begins to nod but then her eyes swivel to Harvey as he returns. She grows abnormally still, once again as stiff as she was when she first entered his house yesterday. 

She begins to ask, “Is that -” in a very low whisper. If Severus wasn’t standing right next to her he’d have missed it entirely.

Harvey proudly shows him his newest acquisition, a big meaty slab. “It’s from the continent. A delectable viande chevaline. Have you ever had it?”

Miss Granger has gone white as a sheet. “Who - how - why -” she begins to sputter.

“Are you alright, miss?” Harvey asks, realizing several seconds too late that perhaps the young lady would find the slab indelicate.

“I need to leave,” she whispers to Severus. She turns and runs out without looking back, the bell above the door tinkling violently behind her.

“Was it something I said?” asks Harvey.

Severus continues to face the door for several seconds before turning back towards the counter. His heart thuds off-balance, the sudden weight of the pang of longing to follow her frightens him. “Don’t rightly know,” Severus says slowly, trying to get control over himself. “She went through a bad patch of trouble a few years back,” he explains. “Hasn’t been herself since, I suppose.”

Harvey nods knowingly. “Dead in the water back then, was she?”

“Nothing that dire,” he says dryly, putting a halt to any further discussion. He sighs heavily and waves away the meat. “Let me see these pheasants you mentioned.” Severus tries very hard to ignore the buzz of her absence as he completes his transaction.

\---

Severus finds her standing rigid against a street lamp on the street. The snow had begun to stick to the blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her curly hair. 

She doesn’t turn to him when she asks, “Did you buy it?” Granger’s voice is little more than a whisper, a hush to match the one that has fallen over the street, everything dulled by the snow.

“The what?”

Her voice is painful, pleading, “The meat from elsewhere.”

Severus shakes his head. He turns to try to gauge her, suss out why this has disturbed her so greatly. “No, a pheasant. It lasts longer. The bones are good for stew.”

An enchantingly soft exhale escapes her then, her shoulders deflating. “I appreciate that probably more than you’ll ever know.” She turns to him, her eyes wet with unshed tears. His bloody heart aches.

“I’m not going to attempt to understand why you reacted so poorly over a cut of meat, Granger,” he says lowly, matching her tone. Severus lifts his hand and flicks her soft hair at her shoulder, dislodging the snow that had settled there. He holds his hand there for a beat too long to be entirely proper before slipping it in his pocket. “But for what it’s worth… I’m glad that my choice has pleased you all the same.”

A small smile passes between them. The ache in Severus’ chest warms and he realizes in a whirl how beautiful she is. He suddenly feels held captive by her. How precarious he stands now on this precipice balancing between desire and good-sense. Severus is uncomfortable and afraid. He shouldn’t be this brazen in ignoring the warning signs; Granger had appeared abruptly and has not shared her motive. It is an argument he is continually reminding himself of because, for some reason, he can’t seem bothered to remember just how grave this situation can be. Carelessly, Severus wants to succumb to her; he has been alone for so very long. Underneath this torment is a ludicrous hope, for what he isn’t entirely certain; it is rushing through him as loud as the blood in his ears.

He juts out his elbow for her to take, willing his voice to keep steady unlike his thoughts, “Now, let’s walk down this lane a little and I’ll be able to fly us back.” 

“Actually,” Granger hesitates. “Can we just go back the way we came? I need to go back.” She cuts a hateful glance towards the butcher shop, her eyebrows scrunching together. “I don’t like it here, Tobias.” 

He chuckles at the use of his pseudonym. Severus leans down to breathe into her ear, his baritone rolling down her neck, “Addressing me by Snape while it’s just the two of us is still acceptable, Granger.”

Granger nods minutely and it appears as if her pupils had doubled in size. Something about that sends a surge of pride through Severus. He did that. He did that to her. Granger had a reaction to him. The hope that was just an undercurrent before is now rolling to the surface, churning in his chest, uncurling and spreading through him.

Severus asks, concern evident in his words, “Are you sure you wish to apparate back? What if you get sick again?”

She grips his elbow tight and begs, “Please, Snape. Just take me back.”

He relents to her and leads her to the alley in which they arrived. If someone were to ask if he had slowed his pace to stretch the moment of her on his arm, he’d have denied it.

\---

When they snap back into his cottage, Granger immediately spins away from him again. She lurches heavily over to his window above his bookcase. In her haste to brace herself against the sill she accidentally knocks over several of his books. Severus looks at Granger astounded, her fingers are white as they grip the ledge. He makes half a step towards her to comfort her, the pang from the butcher’s shop inside him twisting harder. But instead Severus turns away, unsure as to how she’d interpret the gesture and hesitant to allow himself to falter again. He has already humored himself too much regarding her proximity today.

“Merlin,” Severus says quietly as he begins to enlarge and put away the foodstuffs. “When exactly is the last time you’ve apparated?” His tone turns curious, seeking answers without asking a question, “You’re acting like a sixth year.”

“I - I -” Granger stutters, heaving. “I don’t wish to talk about it.”

Severus startles suddenly, the realization about why she might be struggling so much dawning on him, collapsing over him in a torrent of guilt and grief. “Apologies,” he blurts out.

She turns to look at him, the wide brim of her hat blocking half her face from his position. Her shoulders are stiff, anticipating what he is going to say next.

His tongue tastes metallic. When Severus blinks he can see flashes of color against his eyelids; they are reminiscent of the spells that had zipped by him as he had made his way to the shack last May. If he focuses just right, the squall outside his house almost sounds like the screams of the fallen. He continues weary and feeling ill, “It was the War, wasn’t it?”

Granger doesn’t say anything, just turns back to the window. 

“I did not intend to be so callous.” He means it. How foolish he feels now. The warmth that had been building between the two of them while they puttered around Durness has vanished completely. It’s been replaced by a rapidly sinking heavy stone. The War will always be there, looming over them, disturbing any semblance of peace they’d be able to carve out.

“You weren’t there,” Granger suggests, more of a statement than a question.

“No, not after, obviously,” Severus says. “And I, of course, could never know what you and the boys really endured during -” 

“Can we not talk about it?” she asks suddenly. Granger’s shoulders have completely deflated and she is withdrawing, curling into herself. 

Severus begins to nod but when she lurches to the side of his bookcase he steps over to her. “Granger,” he whispers concerned. His hand hovers near her.

Granger looks up at him from her kneeling position. She brings up her hands, full of books. “I knocked these over,” her voice a whisper.

He takes them from her, their fingers brushing. Severus doesn’t feel the electricity between them this time but recognizes that he feels drained instead. The memories of the War are still circling them, haunting them, and polluting the air around them. 

He steps around her to place them back on top of the bookcase as she murmurs, “Oh, wait, there’s another behind here.”

He hears the book scrap against the stone wall and wood furniture as it is extracted. He realizes belatedly, as he arranges his literature, that Granger is taking a longer time than expected to stand; she seems highly interested in the book she plucked out. When she finally does rise she is holding the book open near her chest. His curiosity is piqued although he cannot see which book it is due to her angle.

“Is everything alright?” Severus questions, turning to face her better.

Granger looks like she is about to turn to him but then her head cocks to the side suddenly; as if she hears something he can’t. 

“I need to go,” Granger says as she takes a step to his door and opens it to the cold, and harshly falling snow.

The wind whistles as it passes over the crofthouse. And then, a low croon wafts up in the air, growing louder as it’s carried to them. It sounds like a human cry. Just after the cry’s crescendo Granger lays his book back on the bookcase and her hands disappear momentarily into the folds of her skirt. 

Annoyance blooms immediately at the familiar sound, the memory of his night-time adventure last week reeling back to him, and Severus joins her at the door. He snarls, “It’s that damnable fox again.”

Granger glances at him quickly before stepping across the threshold. “What? No, it’s -”

But at that moment her hat is ripped off her head by the wind. Granger’s hands immediately go to her head, to hold her hair back away from her face. Her hat is tumbling several yards away over the earth, with no sign of stopping.

“Oh, no!” Granger whines loudly. She turns away from him, stumbling.

“It’s alright,” Severus calls out to be heard over the gale. “Are you a witch or are you not, Granger?” 

But she doesn’t appear to hear him. Granger looks as if she doesn’t know where she should go; to either race after and retrieve her hat or to continue on her way as planned and leave the bonnet behind. Her hair whips around her hands, her skirt and petticoats are flapping in the frigid breeze. Severus only manages to see a glimpse of the toes of her brown boots, the skirt’s heaviness evident. Despite his initial impression of her being under-dressed for the weather, she is surprisingly layered up. 

Turning away from her, Severus steps completely out of the house and summons her hat. It zips to his outstretched hand. He spins to her then, offering Granger her millinery. 

Granger’s eyes flick between his face and her headpiece for several long seconds. Then she snatches the hat from his hand as she turns completely away from him. Severus catches a peek of something the texture of velvet in her hair, a headband perhaps. The poor chit really does need as much help as possible to manage her mane, he thinks. 

Granger spins around to face him as she cinches her bonnet’s chin straps tighter. “Thank you.”

Severus nods at her. 

The fox screams again, the cry pitching high and low as the wind carries it around them.

“I really have to go now,” she breathes out before turning and hurrying down the coast. The wind whips around her and the snow curls after her.

Curious about her departure, Severus watches her go. She didn’t seem as shaken about the fox as he had been. How long has she been here to make her so unconcerned about the unsettling cry? 

Several birds begin to squawk from somewhere behind him. He turns to investigate.

Two gulls are cawing at an interloper on the beach, a very large eagle-owl. He is picking apart something, maybe the entrails of a recently deceased otter. The owl, ignoring the other birds, suddenly stops to swivel its head to look at Severus. Its orange eyes bore straight into his. Shuddering, Severus turns again to search out Granger’s form. But she is already gone, disappeared somewhere into the snowy landscape. 

Later, when he sits in his warm house in the evening he picks up the book Granger had dislodged behind the furniture earlier that day. It’s an old book, a zoology of magical creatures, used mostly for reference rather than light reading. As Severus thumbs through it, he discovers something odd. The pages are missing - ripped out - between the entries of Imp and Kneazle. But even odder still he cannot recall the information that must have been there. Nor can he make heads or tails as to why Granger would have ripped those pages out. 


	4. Chapter 4

A few days pass before Granger raps on his door again. 

Severus ushers her in and begins to make tea. The familiarity of the exchange is calming. The warmth of another in his home is comforting. But there has been a crack of unease growing in him during her absence. Severus needs more information than she has been willing to give. He is feeling restless, uncertain, and afraid. He needs to know if she has come to take him away. Or if Granger is simply playing the role as his minder. Or if she is waiting for others to arrive, to surprise him at his most distracted, and take him back together in force.

Granger sits at his table, running a finger over the grain’s pattern. “How long have you been here?” she asks as he makes the tea.

“Since the very end of the War.”

“You didn’t go anywhere else?”

“Where else would I have gone?”

Severus places her cup in front of her. 

Granger shrugs when she catches his gaze.

He sits across from her with his own cup and takes a sip.

“And how long have you been here, Granger?”

“I feel like I’ve been here for a very long time.” 

He nods, the crack of unease becoming a fully formed rift. “Time often feels irrelevant here.”

She doesn’t say anything in response. They sit in silence as they drink their tea. The rift is growing, swallowing him. And he finds that he cannot take the silence anymore, or the purposeful evasion.

Finally, Severus leans back in his chair and gives her an appraising look. “Granger, what are you doing here?”

She startles. “What?”

He gestures around his house. “Here. What are you doing here? You found me two weeks ago and I have no idea as to your motive.”

“My motive?” Granger asks quietly as if the word stung her. 

“I had thought, at first, that you came to take me back. To force me to atone for my sins. But you were never this cruel to drag it out this long.”

“You couldn’t have done anything -”

“Granger,” he snarls. “You’re an adult now. Stop looking at me through a child’s lens. I did horrible -”

“No,” Granger whispers harshly. “No, I don’t believe it.”

“And why do you say that?”

She looks at him with impossibly large eyes. “You’ve treated me with nothing but kindness. Whatever you did before… it’s the past. It doesn’t matter now.”

Severus scoffs. “People don’t change, Granger. I’m the same man I was then.”

“Then maybe you were always a good man. Anyone can be forced to do bad things. It doesn’t change the integrity of your soul.” 

He twists in his chair. The pronouncement makes him uncomfortable and the deflection annoys him. Severus is no closer to the reasonings behind Granger’s sudden appearance on the coast. Something is winding in him, warning him of something. Severus isn’t sure what it is exactly, but he feels as if he’s treading on unsteady ground.

“Again,” Severus demands, in an attempt to settle this quandary. “What are you doing here, then?”

She circles a finger around the rim of her cup. “I guess I don’t know anymore.”

“Eloquent.”

Granger shrugs both shoulders again, almost looking defeated. “The truth all the same.” Her eyes lock on to his. “And have I ever lied to you, Snape?”

\---

Severus is conflicted. And when he’s conflicted he goes for a ramble to clear his head. The uneven rolling landscape is a far departure of the stone hallways of Hogwarts. The floors there had always thudded satisfactorily under his feet. Now, Severus just has to make do with what he has. At least he doesn’t have to dodge oblivious hormonal brats, he admits. 

Severus doesn’t much care where he’s going as he ambles up the coast towards the sea. Severus is not as aware as he should be, he realizes, but his brain is whirling and thoughts of Granger are taking up his headspace. 

Granger is peculiar and yet intriguing all in the same look. Severus is unsure as to what to do about her. To neutralize her threat, he can leave now, and he certainly feels foolish for staying as long as he has. After all, Granger still has not divulged her reasoning for being here. That alone is enough to warrant Severus deciding to leave, and it would satisfy the thing that had begun to twist in his gut, the voice that is warning him of danger ahead. 

Was there a way to convince Granger to leave this place - and him - instead? Severus had been so careful to cover his tracks before he arrived. And Granger is the brightest witch of his acquaintance, if she really wanted to force him back to London, she’d have figured out a way to do it by now. Perhaps she is only there in hopes of playing the long game to try and convince him to return. If he were to decline strongly enough Granger might leave on her own accord. 

No, Severus doesn’t like that either. He had been alone for so long and he must re-enter society starting from somewhere. Severus had forgotten what it was like to talk to someone else on a routine basis. To ask a question and receive an answer in return. The fuzzy mass in Severus’ chest, the thing most pleased by her presence, is at great odds with the heavy weary mass growing in his gut.

_ Damn_, Severus thinks. He likes Granger here. 

But that, by default, makes being here incredibly unsafe. 

Severus starts to walk up a little hill, a small peninsula along the coast. Something only accessible by foot when the tide is low.

But before he crests it completely Severus hears her. Granger’s voice is hardly more than a whisper being carried on the breeze. She did always like to talk through a problem, he remembers. Severus figures she must be throwing rocks into the loch as he hears them splash into the water.

“I don’t like this.”

Severus stops short. 

“He’s a nice man.”

He eavesdrops; once a spy, always a spy.

Granger’s tone grows sharper, “No, he’s always treated me kindly.”

She shifts on the sand, Severus can hear her boots scrap against the pebbles.

“Does it have to be him?” Granger pleads to herself. And then softer she murmurs, “I  _ like  _ him.”

Suddenly feeling like he had heard something he shouldn’t have, Severus pushes a large rock with his foot. It rolls heavily and loudly down the small incline behind him. 

He can hear her startle. Granger scrambles to her feet, and the water sloshes. Severus hopes she didn’t step into it in her haste.

He gives it an infestimenal pause before he comes to the top of the hill. Granger is several feet away, down at the bottom, along the shore. 

He doesn’t join her. 

“Granger,” Severus greets.

She brushes down her skirt. “Snape.”

He slips his hands in his pockets and surveys Loch Eriboll. The shore seems to stretch forever. “It’s nice here, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Granger answers. “There’s something special about this outcropping. How it’s only accessible when the water is low.”

“You can still access it.” He shrugs his shoulders casually. “But it would be more dangerous, wouldn’t it?” His tone is heavy, urging her to understand what he really means.

Granger nods, a faint pink on her cheeks. “Yes, not exactly forbidden I suppose, but…”

“Dangerous,” Severus repeats. He looks pointedly at her now. Dark eyes ensnaring brown. 

They stare at each other for several moments. 

“Good day, Granger,” he says as he turns away to walk back down the way he came.


	5. Chapter 5

After not seeing Granger for several days Severus nips out to Durness for a quick shop. However, while there, away from the oppressive air of the crofthouse, he finally decides that if Granger is too dangerous to trust he should begin to come up with a contingency plan. His brain has spent the last few days shouting at him to leave, while at the same time his body is in clear disagreement. Severus has been dulling his physical feelings using his Occlumentic shields, but strangely his shields feel stronger outside his house - away from Granger. He now feels more sure and steadfast in his self-preservation. After all, isolation has worked well for him all this time; he can’t risk being distracted by the first person to show him favorable attention in years.

Severus scours the advertisements for homes for sale or rent. He tours several with a  _Notice-Me-Not_ across his face. Then Severus travels to Thurso, Kirkwall, and Aith to do the same. How far north should he go? How difficult would it be to get to Bergen across the North Sea? 

He spends three weeks hopping from place to place. There are no good answers. Severus feels wrong-footed and indecisive. Agonizingly, as the distance stretches between himself and the crofthouse, Severus’ touch-starved body aches even harder. It soon overcomes and smothers what little good sense he may have mustered at the beginning of this journey.

Severus’ thoughts keep returning to Granger. The warmth of her body taking up space next to him, her rich brown eyes, her fingers grazing his, her voice in concert with his during a conversation.

When he finally apparates back at the crofthouse there’s a thin line of dust on everything. Severus flicks his hand and it disappears. He begins to put away his supplies he just finished acquiring in Durness: tea, another pheasant, sugar, salted meat, potatoes.

Severus puts the kettle on and steps outside. The air is bitter and cold. Severus snaps up his coat’s collar and slips his hands in his pockets. He takes a long breath and blinks slowly, savoring this unlikely place he had found a home in. Severus opens his eyes.

Granger is here, down a little ways. How could he have missed her when he first stepped out? But then realization dawns that she’s in the water up to her knees, her skirt floating behind her. He can’t rightly make sense of what he is seeing; is Hermione walking into the loch? The water is absolutely frigorific... she is either going to drown or die of the elements. His heart hammers in his chest. Has his absence hurt her that badly? 

Severus is in shock. He doesn’t move; he can’t turn away.

The door behind him slams against the crofthouse’s wall. Severus flinches but it snaps him out of his haze. 

Hermione whirls around at the noise, surprise evident on her face. 

They yell for each other at the same time; their names overlapping on the wind. Synchronizing, they move towards each other. Severus rushes down the slope to the shore, the gale is fighting him the entire way down; his hair whips relentlessly across his face. Hermione is fighting against the water in her heavy skirt; she is lifting her knees high in her attempt to run inland. Severus makes it to the water’s edge before she does and rushes into the frigid loch up to his ankles. He hisses in shock but still reaches out to her; Hermione only has one or two more steps to go to reach him.  _ How does she not already have hypothermia_, he thinks.

She collapses heavily onto his chest, her hands tug on his coat. “Oh,” Hermione whimpers, tears running down her face. “I thought you left.”

Severus doesn’t say anything, instead he runs his hands up and down her back, offering mute comfort. Silently, he is rejoicing at the feel of her against him. His skin is singing, his body’s ache for companionship is being satiated. He realizes with a jolt that he has missed her with a rare intensity. Even the heartache over Lily had never reached this degree. 

Granger pulls back suddenly and grabs one of his hands. Her voice is shaky yet determined, “We need to get out of the water.” Hermione steps around Severus, pulling him along behind her. She looks afraid when she turns back to look at the loch.

“Did you see something there?” Severus rasps. “Is that why you were in it?”

“Yes, something like that.” Granger continues to lead him back to the crofthouse.

The pair come to his door. She turns to him. “Don’t go in the water,” Hermione demands. 

“I don’t think -”

“Promise me,” she whispers, her teeth inexplicably not chattering despite her lower half being soaked. “No matter what you see or hear. Don’t go in the water.”

Severus doesn’t understand why this is such a concern to her - he hasn’t lost all his survival instincts - but he nods all the same. 

Hermione’s shoulders sag in relief. 

“Would you like to come in for tea?” he asks, not wanting their reunion to end; he hasn’t seen her for weeks. His feet are also beginning to scream for the warmth of his house. 

“I would like that very much,” she says, resting her hand on his arm, her eyes catching his. The air around them feels soft and warm despite the actual low temperature. Severus smiles slightly. Granger returns a dazzling one of her own. He finds pleasure in this and the mass in his chest twirls in response. 

Once inside he dries both their clothes and shoes with an easy flick of his wand. He sets a warming charm on her for good measure. 

As Severus is pouring their tea Hermione quietly says again, “I thought you left. You were gone for so long.”

He turns to put their cups down at the table. “I was.”

Granger looks up at him, tears pooling along her eyelashes. “Why?”

He turns his head away from her. He doesn’t want to answer; it would only bring her pain. 

“Tell me why,” she pleads, reaching across the space between them for his cold hand.

Severus sighs heavily, accepting her touch passively. “It was because of you.”

Hermione sobs at that. And the mass in him twists viciously, causing him to wince. His heart hasn’t felt this burdensome in a long time.

“Now, now,” he hushes as he crouches in front of her. He holds her soft face in his hands, wiping away her tears with his thumbs. “I am afraid,” Severus admits softly. “You scare me, Granger.”

“M - m - me?”

“I don’t trust easily,” he murmurs. “I don’t trust anyone.”

“You can trust  _me_.” Hermione grabs onto his wrists and squeezes them. “Trust  _ me_. Just me. I’ve never lied to you.”

Severus hums low, still cautious. Now his hands are tingling with the contact, and the spark is traveling up his arms to meet that treacherous growing mass in his chest. It almost feels - incredulously - like hope. 

“Please,” she begs. Severus breaks a little; his body wanting nothing more than to comfort hers.

He stands but then bends down to press his lips chastely against her forehead. But even that sends his nerve-endings into a tailspin. Severus finds it hard to control himself from embracing her again and chokes out, “Please don’t cry for me, Hermione.”

“Oh,” she breathes. “I was so worried about you. I thought that you may have -”

“It’s alright,” he mollifies. “I’m here now.”

Severus sags in the chair across from her. He is trying to give them some much needed space so neither say or do something that they may regret. 

The silence stretches between them as they apathetically sip their tea. Severus still feels incredibly unsure. Intellectually, he knows that he’s on a precipice; either he can fall off of it into what he infers is a willing witch’s arms or step back and leave permanently. If he was given this quagmire a year ago - a time before Hermione had arrived - the answer would be simple and he’d already be in Bergen. 

But Severus’ body is burning, the ache of his isolation at the forefront of his mind. He has scarred, damaged, himself with his exile after a life marked by rough usage. But he knows Hermione could heal him, that she already holds some kind of power over him. A power strong enough that has already compelled Severus to return to her rather than seek shelter in a safer harbor.

Is it because he knows her already? That they share a past that no one else can claim? Why is he so unwilling to sever ties with her? Severus doesn’t rightly know any of the answers. Or maybe… maybe he’s afraid to admit the truth as to how he feels. Verbalizing it finalizes it and it may not be reciprocated to the degree he desires.

“Snape?” Granger whispers. 

Severus looks up at her, her face framed by that wide-brimmed hat. Her skin is so luminous that it basically confirms his earlier suspicions about her using a glamor. 

“If - if I -” she stops to gather her words. “I’d like to return tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t see how I could stop you even if I wanted to.”

“Do you want to? Stop me, that is?”

Their eyes snag together. The truth bubbles rapidly to the surface. “No,” Severus answers, his voice as low as the tide striking the stones on the beach. 

Hermione’s face flushes but then falls again as if she suddenly remembers something upsetting. “It’s not safe for you here.”

“No, it isn’t,” he agrees.

“I have come to…” Granger looks beyond him, focusing on the wall behind his shoulder. “I have come to grow fond of you,” she admits. 

Severus doesn’t say anything to this. He is far too distracted by the tightness in his chest suddenly exploding. Euphoric, he only has one coherent thought:  _She returns my feelings_.

Hermione continues, “And instead of telling you why you should leave -”

Severus cuts her off, confused, “I thought we were implying I should stay earlier?”

Granger’s mournful eyes swivel back to his. “I would very much like you to stay. But -”

“But what?” Severus can't entirely hide the edge to his voice, he is beginning to feel like she is rejecting him. The conversation has suddenly veered onto a familiar wounding path.

Granger sighs and looks away, fidgeting with the blanket draped over her shoulders. “I think if I were to show you, you’d understand. As to why you can’t stay.”

“Why can’t you show me now?”

“I’m not brave enough,” Hermione whispers. “Give me one day, one day to settle my nerves and I’ll show you. You’ll know why you can’t stay. But -”

“But what?” Severus repeats again. His tone is less harsh than before. 

“But I don’t think you’ll understand how I was ever able to grow fond of you. I don’t even understand it myself.”

“Because we’re so different?”

“Obviously,” Granger utters.

“There’s a Muggle idiom about opposites attracting, Granger. You should be aware of it.”

“I’m afraid that this may be too opposite,” she declares as she stands. “I do hope I’m doing the right thing by showing you.”

“And if you aren’t?” Severus asks as he grabs her wrist as she passes him towards the door. 

Hermione looks down at him, her face bleak. “It doesn’t even bear thinking about, I think.”

He circles his thumb across her wrist. “Letting me decide that for myself, are you? Whether this secret of yours is worth staying or leaving?”

“It seems like the best option. One that you’d appreciate. Am I wrong to give you this autonomy?”

His shoulders deflate slightly, she is showing him a great kindness by giving him this choice. “No, you aren’t.” Severus drops his hand; it’s still tingling from the touch. “See you in the morning then, Hermione?” 

She nods and opens his door. Granger turns and reiterates, a reminder and a warning, “Remember, whatever you see or hear do not go into the water.”

He waves his hand dismissively at her. “You act like I’m some errant schoolboy. I can handle myself.”

“It’s not you who I’m worried about so much, Snape.” Then, she’s gone out into the dusk. 


	6. Chapter 6

Severus wakes at dawn. There’s something thick in the air. Apprehension maybe. Desire. Anxiety.

Severus flips his thick blanket over, slides his feet into his slippers, and meanders to the small washroom. It is the only modern convenience he had added to the croft when he first arrived. Shortly after, Severus restarts the wood stove and puts a kettle on to boil. 

He digs around one of his cabinets for some bread and jam. Severus finds the strawberry preserves but not the bread. In his haste to return yesterday he had forgotten to get some in Durness. Severus meticulously slices some potatoes instead; the muscle memory of his past profession comes back easily. He is pleased to discover some mushrooms under a stasis charm that hadn’t yet gone bad and chops them as well. Severus places them all on the small griddle next to the kettle. It’s not much of a breakfast, but it was always his poorest meal before a day of uncertainty. He might as well keep to the status quo of a lifetime.

Severus turns and scans his small house. Including another person almost seems impractical. The space suits him just fine but… wouldn’t another - wouldn’t Hermione - want to bring things here at some point? Or would he have to move to Durness properly, as he originally thought over a month ago, so they’d have the space they need? He scoffs at himself, he’s really putting the cart before the horse. 

Hermione had warned him that she was going to show him something today. Something that she is convinced will send him away. Severus stayed up late last night mulling the possibilities over in his head. His top candidate is an Order safe house, or maybe Hermione’s personal journal outlining her assignment to bring him back to London. Would any of that tip the scales enough to force Severus away from her? He hasn’t decided yet.

He walks around the table and spots a crumpled piece of paper near the chair Granger sat in yesterday. Curious, Severus picks up the misplaced parchment. He smooths it out on his table. It’s odd. The font appears to be the same from the book that has pages missing. While Severus assumed Hermione had ripped the pages out, he never did come to a proper conclusion as to why. Several areas on the page are smudged, crossed out harshly and chaotically. The top half of the page is gone entirely, the only thing remaining of the illustration is a long sleek fin. Severus turns it around in the dim light of morning, trying to decipher what it is. It could be a tail maybe, but it’s smooth unlike the scaly tails of the Merpeople.

The writing below the image is just as difficult to decode. Only a few phrases and words remain, the ink smudged. Severus begins to read: _ unusual ability - human - instead - of a stranger - image of a person known - Legilimency skill - similar to Wampus Ca - Like Sire - bewitch their vic - dulling their percep… _

Severus understands all these words on this crumpled piece of paper. But he cannot put any of the meanings together. An unusual ability as a human? That would harken back to his theory about the tail in the illustration being a Merperson’s. But the pages that had been ripped out weren’t near the M’s were they?

Severus leaves the paper on the table and walks over to the bookcase. Just as he reaches for the book in question he looks out his window into the eery morning light, to the area of beach where he had first laid eyes on her. Through the cracks of frost over the glass Severus sees a familiar form.

Hermione is out in the loch again. But this time much further out in the water. She’s out over waist-deep. Severus knows it’s her. She’s wearing that bloody bonnet again, her hair is billowing out below it from the wind, her wardrobe hasn’t changed… he _ knows_. Severus is convinced that it is Hermione and not a mirage. His adrenaline spikes immediately. 

What is she doing out there? And why is she in the bloody loch again? She is going to get herself killed with this tomfoolery. 

Severus hears the blood rush through his ears. He tries to open the door but his hands are shaking so badly that he can’t get a grip on the doorknob. In desperation, Severus slams his shoulder against the wood. Once, twice, and then it rebounds loudly off the wall. It echoes around the loch for a moment. But Hermione doesn’t turn to the sound. Completely leaving his good sense, boots, and coat behind, Severus runs down to the coast again. The gale of the cold air is relentless, chilling him immediately.

Severus yells for her but she doesn’t turn to acknowledge him. If anything she’s out further now. Can Hermione hear him? Is the wind too strong? Is the air too thick?

Breathing hard Severus makes it to the shoreline. He scans the coast and sees an abandoned rowboat. It must have washed in from elsewhere, he’s never seen it before. Severus swivels his gaze out to her again. Hermione is in the water up to her shoulders now. Is she treading water? Is she floating? Is she dead? He can’t tell, she’s too far out.

“_Granger!_” Severus yells panicked across the water.

No response.

He tries again, “_HERMIONE!_”

Still nothing.

Fear overwhelms him. Hermione seems to be going out further. How far away is she now? Is she being pulled out by a current? Is the tide coming in or going out? He doesn’t know. He can’t think. Severus wishes he could see her face to determine how much trouble she’s in. He knows that there isn’t anyone else here. If Hermione needs help, it would have to be him.

No longer caring about her warning from the night before Severus runs to the rowboat. He hisses as his feet go into the water. It’s brumal, it stings. _ Stupid chit of a girl_, Severus thinks. His heart is already mourning; he scolds himself that he had begun to think about a future with her. Would Severus even be able to resuscitate her once he reaches her?

Severus runs to dislodge the boat from its place on the shore, pushing it through the water. He runs and skips up into the body of the boat. The wind lashes at him, the air bites his skin. Using the oars Severus begins to move in her direction. It’s taking forever. Hermione seems to be slipping more and more under the water.

Severus’ muscles are screaming. His lungs are fighting against him. His feet have lost feeling. 

Just a few more strokes and Severus is there. But it’s just her bonnet left floating on the water. He plucks it from the loch.

“Hermione!” Severus yells again, looking overboard into the deep, clutching her hat tightly.

“Snape!” he hears from the shore. He turns to her. Hermione is there, on the shore in front of his house.

But how is that possible?

Hermione was in the water. He is holding her hat. He looks back at her, confusion etched across his face. Hermione is wearing her bonnet. He cannot make sense of this. Severus feels her millinery, rolling the fabric between his fingers; it’s real.

“_NO, SNAPE!_” Hermione wails. He can hear her sloshing into the water in an attempt to reach him.

Severus doesn’t understand.

He looks over into the water again. Severus sees her face peering up at him from the dark.

How?

Why?

What?

Severus hears her from the shore again. Hermione’s frantic voice cuts to him on the boat in the middle of the loch, “Tobias, oh, Tobias.”

Severus gazes at her dumbly, knowing something isn’t right but he can’t figure out what. It must be shock or hypothermia; his brain is no longer working properly. And then the creature in the water lunges out from the waves, grabs hold of his shirt with human hands and pulls him under the water.

The creature is half human, half aquatic beast. The back half is a long sleek tail. This Hermione’s body rapidly morphs into an equine shape. Her hair grows out into a long tangled mane, her skin turns green. Severus is pushed further into the deep by the muscular body.

He is vaguely aware that there are others here, a half dozen or so. _ Kelpies_, Severus thinks as he is driven down below, his hand somehow stuck in a mane. He can’t wrench it free. And the water… the water is so cold. 

He can feel the water around him change, his Hermione must be rushing to him. The other Kelpies shift, attempting to block her path to him. Severus’ eyes lock on to hers and he sees that while she is the Hermione he has grown fond of, she is also half horse. Severus remembers the paper laying on his table. She had tried to warn him, hadn’t she? Hermione is a Kelpie. She’s been one all this time. 

Her human hands reach around the other Kelpies in an effort to touch his face. The Kelpies snort aggressively as they hold her back. In desperation, Hermione’s human hair expands and surrounds both of them, as if to give them the illusion of privacy. Startlingly, Severus finds then that instead of feeling anger or sadness, all he wants to feel is comfort.

In a final oddity, Severus can somehow hear her voice here under the water.

_ I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. _

Everything is slowing.

_ I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. _

Everything feels heavy.

_ I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. _

The light is gone.

_ I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. _

\---

She finally makes it. It takes her over three years to find any hint as to where Professor Snape went after the Battle of Hogwarts. After cataloging his entire estate there was only an imprinted scribble on a spare pad of paper. The original paper had been long torn away. The imprint simply read _ IV27_. She had decided it had to be a postcode.

The others felt she was mad to search for him. But she felt driven by guilt. Professor Snape had worked for decades towards the final outcome. If nothing else he should know that it was not in vain, that Harry was successful and that Voldemort had been defeated.

Disappointingly, there isn’t much of his magic left anywhere anymore. Even with an enhanced _ Point Me _it didn’t take her incredibly far; Sutherland County is a rather expansive isolated place. But a chance in Durness’ shops led her down this lonely road and into this lonely crofthouse. 

Hermione scans what used to be his residence. There is a thick layer of dust over everything. Professor Snape had long abandoned this place. Rotten food is next to an empty kettle on the stove. It’s too difficult to discern what it used to be. There are some tattered papers left on his table. Hermione turns around and startles at what she sees hanging by the door. His coat. Beneath it, his boots. He left in a hurry, then.

Hermione looks out the window above his bookcase. 

A tall dark-clad figure is standing down by the shore. She could swear that he wasn’t there when she had arrived. 

Despite herself Hermione rushes out the door, exhilaration running through her. The door rebounds sharply behind her but the figure doesn’t turn. The cool fall air rushing through her hair is comforting after the heat of summer.

As Hermione gets closer, she sees that he’s wearing a wool cap, dark trousers, and a stiff coat. She grabs his arm, fearful he’d disapparate, as she runs in front of him. 

Her eager eyes run over his face. At first, there is nothing. Just blankness. Then, as if a _ Notice-Me-Not _had begun to dissolve, his features come into view. The pale skin, hooked nose, black fathomless eyes. 

“Professor Snape,” Hermione breathes. She feels jubilant. _He’s here! _

They stare at each other for several long seconds. Hermione cannot believe her good fortune. Other than looking a little thinner and slightly shorter than she remembers Professor Snape looks exactly the same. She figures the discrepancy must be because of the gap of time from when she saw him last. 

His response to her is simple and succinct. Hermione is humored in the fact that some things really don’t ever change. “Girl,” he says. 

“Please,” she gasps, still out of breath from her sprint down to the shore. “I’m not a girl anymore. Hermione. Hermione will be fine. Oh, Sir, I’ve been looking for you. I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

“Obviously.”

“Where are you - what have you -” Hermione says as she spins around, gesturing wildly towards Loch Eriboll, letting go of his arm briefly. “How can -” but when she turns back he is gone. 

Hermione stands on the shore for a very long time in despair. She stares at the loch until her vision becomes blurry, imagining faces in the gentle waves. Hermione feels so foolish. She should have never let go of him. Professor Snape was right here. What if he fled? She may never be able to track him again. 

Twilight creeps up from the horizon and Hermione decides that she’ll stay the night in the crofthouse. She isn’t quite ready to admit defeat; maybe Professor Snape will return. However, it is quite odd that he is here in the vicinity but no longer using the house as his primary residence. Cautious, Hermione throws several advanced diagnostic spells over the building before re-entering. Her spells come back clean. Maybe Professor Snape had simply moved to a larger house? 

And maybe he had inexplicably abandoned the coat hanging on the peg for the one he wore at the shore? Hermione stares at it, willing it to release its secrets. It looks exactly like the one he had on earlier. She rolls the fabric in between her fingers; it even feels the same. Peculiar. This is all very strange. 

Just before Hermione falls asleep later that night she realizes that Professor Snape’s voice hadn't seemed quite as deep as it used to be. The tone was the same. But his pitch was off slightly. After tossing it around in her mind, Hermione comes to the conclusion that his voice must have been altered by the snakebite. What else could be the logical answer?

Later that night, Hermione wakes with a start because something is screaming outside the window. 

  
  
  


FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title _By the Sea and Far Away_ is a play on _On the Seas and Far Away_, a song by Robert Burns.
> 
> Wow, everyone, we made it to the end! So about those tags... this fic was what it said on the tin. However, I am now groveling at your feet because I am sorry I traumatized you all. Allow me to reassure you that I love SS and would probably not repeat this occurrence unless it was another Spooktober fic. I hope I haven't scared you off of them or me forever! See you next year for another? I might already have a half-idea brewing...
> 
> I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the inspiration for this fic. My five-year-old's favorite summer activity is swimming! But the water is still incredibly cold in early June in New York. For the first two weeks, we had to drink hot chocolate after every swimming session to warm up. It wasn't much of a leap from there to here as I shivered in the cold as he paddled around. So, thanks, G. Perhaps someday your mother will share with you what she does while you're at school. 
> 
> While I've been uploading this I've been feverishly working on my assignment for the [2019 SSHG Gift Fest](https://sshg-giftfest.livejournal.com/) that is hosted on Livejournal. Expect to see that fic uploaded here shortly after reveals in early January. After a short writing break to recharge my batteries I plan to leap back into the arms of my Unspeakables and continue their series. I hope to have something to share from them in the first quarter of the year. And because I have a muse that doesn't quit I may also throw a small fluffy Valentine-ish fic at you all too.
> 
> My sincere thanks to everyone who has subscribed, commented, kudoed, bookmarked, directed others over here through their own ANs, dropped a mention in a comment thread elsewhere, or left me a note (and, in one emoji-string 'splosion moment, a moodboard) on tumblr about this fic. I genuinely appreciate you all and consider myself a fortunate writer to have you here. ❤️
> 
> PS. Are we still friends?


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